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The Knights

Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)

THE KNIGHTS.

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It appears, that the Poet must have been subjected to some particular disadvantages and embarrassments in the production of this play. We have seen, that in the preceding comedy of the Acharnians, Lamachus, a rising military character, had been personated on the stage, and had been addressed by name without disguise or equivocation throughout the whole of that play.—This is no longer the case in the play now before us; Nicias, Demosthenes, and Cleon himself, are in no instance addressed by name.—It should seem therefore, that some enactment must have taken place, restraining the licence of comedy in this particular; and here a distinction is to be observed, between the choral parts and the dramatic dialogue; for in this very play Cleon is most unsparingly abused by name in the choral songs.—The fact seems to have been, that the licentious privilege of the “Sacred Chorus,” consecrated by immemorial usage, and connected with the rites of Bacchus, could not be abridged by mere human authority; while the dramatic dialogue (originally derived, in all probability, from scenes in dumb show, which had been introduced to relieve the monotony of the Chorus) was regarded as mere recent invention destitute of any divine sanction, and liable to be modified and restrained by the power of the state.

With respect to Nicias and Demosthenes, the Poet could have found no difficulty in evading the new law. The masks worn by the actors presenting a caricature-likeness of each of them, would be sufficient to identify them; and it could not be supposed that either of them would be offended at being brought forward in burlesque, when the Poet's intention was evidently friendly towards them both; the whole drift of his comedy being directed against their main antagonist and rival. For the caricature in which they themselves were represented, was in no respect calculated to make them unpopular; on the contrary, the blunt heartiness, and good fellowship of the one, and the timid scrupulous piety of the other, were qualities, which in different ways recommended them respectively to the favor and good will of their fellow-citizens, and which were accordingly exhibited and impressed upon the attention of the audience, through the only medium which was consistent with the essential character of the ancient comedy.

But among the audience themselves there would undoubtedly be some gainsayers, who if they were not silenced at the first outset, might have interrupted the attention of others—“This is too bad” they might have said,—“The Poet will get himself into a scrape,—Here is a manifest infraction of the new law.”—In order to obviate this, the Poet in the first scene, before the proper subject of his comedy is developed, but at the precise point when his individual characters (Nicias and Demosthenes) were sufficiently marked and identified, submits the question to a theatrical

vote, appealing to the audience for their sanction and approbation of the course which he has adopted. This appeal, marked as it is with a character of caution and timidity, is, with a humourous propriety, assigned to the part of Nicias; with Cleon however the case was different; and there was a difficulty which it required all the courage and ability of the Poet to surmount—no actor dared to expose himself to the resentment of the Demagogue by personating him upon the stage; and among the artists who worked for the theatre, fearful of being considered as accomplices of the Poet in his evasion of the new law, no one could be found who would venture to produce the representation of his countenance in a theatrical mask.—The Poet therefore undertook the part himself, and for want of a mask, disguised his own features, according to the rude method of primitive comedy, by smearing them with the lees of wine. It is worthy of remark, that in his effort to surmount this difficulty he has contrived to identify the Demagogue from the first moment of his appearance, concentrating his essential character and his known peculiarities, in a speech of five lines,—his habitual boisterous oath and a slangish use of the dual.